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Page 217 - Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devotion will you not thank God, for the circumstances of your extraordinary life ! You are connected with both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain, that the electric spark of Liberty should be conducted, through you, from the new world to the old...

Page 217 - ... of patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You will account it an instance of your good fortune, sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a time which enables you to be present at this solemnity. You now behold the field, the renown of which reached you in the heart of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incredible diligence of Prescott ; defended,...

Page 116 - I forbear to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit me only to submit to your majesty's consideration, whether his long imprisonment, and the confiscation of his estate, and the indigence and dispersion of his family, and the painful anxieties incident to all these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of sufferings which recommend him to the mediation of humanity 1 Allow me, sir, on this occasion, to be its organ ; and to entreat that he may be permitted to come to this country, on such conditions,...

Page 218 - Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots, fell with him. Those who survived that day and whose lives have been prolonged to the present hour are now around you. Some of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold ! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you. Behold ! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing of God on you and yours forever.

Page 29 - ... edifice of freedom is to be erected here. Perhaps, like the stratum of rock which is spread under the whole surface of their country, it may harden when exposed to the air, but it seems quite as likely that it will fall and crush the builders.

Page 90 - It is not by any figure of rhetoric or force of language that the idea can be communicated. A hundred anecdotes and a hundred thousand examples are required to show the. extreme rottenness of every member. There are men and women who are greatly and eminently virtuous. I have the pleasure to number many in my own acquaintance ; but they stand forward from a background deeply and darkly shaded. It is however from such crumbling matter that the great edifice of freedom is to be erected here.

Page 194 - have you forgotten what we have done for him ? Have you forgotten that the bones of our children, of our brothers, everywhere attest our fidelity — in the sands of Africa, on the shores of the Guadalquivir and the Tagus, on the banks of the Vistula, and in the frozen deserts of Muscovy ? During more than ten years, three millions of Frenchmen have perished for a man who wishes still to struggle against all Europe.

Page 90 - The materials for a revolution in this country are very indifferent. Everybody agrees that there is an utter prostration of morals; but this general position, can never convey to an American mind the degree of depravity.